15 Medicinal Herbs and Their Uses for This Fall | Herb Garden Tour

So these are my top favorite herbs to not only grow, so I'm going to be giving you a tour of my medicinal herbal garden, but also to have on hand and use especially as we move into the cold and flu season and especially this year during the pandemic. So my name is Melissa K. Norris and I'm a fifth generation homesteader and so these are what I have decided to grow and have been using based on my own research, but I'm not a medical professional or certified herbalist or anything like that, so you definitely want to make sure that you're doing your own research and this is not, you know the drill, diagnosing you or prescribing treatment or any of those fun things. So let's dive in. So my number one pick if I could only pick one herb to have medicinal use in my arsenal would be elderberry. Elderberry is very well known both in scientific research as well as our folklore type medicine for being amazing at boosting the immune system and also has incredible antiviral properties. So the great thing is you can use both the elder flower as well as the elderberries. Now this plant is three years old so I just planted it three years ago and it is a Sambucus nigra. It's a Samuel variety of elderberry and by the third year you'll start to get blossoms. Now you can see I was super excited. You should have seen me making all kinds of noises when I saw that I had blossoms this year, but I only have three blossoms because this is still considered a very immature elderberry bush. So I won't be harvesting, actually I should say I will be harvesting and using these blossoms this year because this variety does need another pollinator. It's not self-pollinating and the other variety that I have did not produce blossoms this year. So I will actually be harvesting and using this elder flower once it blooms out, but typically the elderberry itself is used to make elderberry syrup. I've got a video on how to make elderberry syrup, things that you need to know in order to stay safe, and my favorite resource if you're not growing it your own yet or you're like me and you don't have enough yet. So I'll pop that down here below in the video description so that you can learn more about that. So up next we have is our feverfew. So not only is this a great for medicinal, but it's also really pretty. Now I just harvested from this yesterday actually some of the blossoms because if you're in early to mid-summer and you harvest the blossoms, you'll almost double the amount of flowers that you get on it. So you'll double your harvest as well. And feverfew you use the blossoms and the leaves and it's really well known for helping to aid in headache relief. Plus it's also really pretty. So we've got quite a few of those. Now I have to tell you elderberry is my number one as far as using it for antiviral and boosting your immunity. But my second favorite must-have on the list is this right here. Now it's not in bloom yet, but this is a marshmallow plant. So it's actually going to put up some really pretty blossoms as we get a little bit further into the summer months. But marshmallow, traditionally you will harvest the root. So these I'm not going to be able to harvest the root from until they go through. They get obviously a lot bigger. They're just going on here. But marshmallow we know is mucilaginous. So it's really great if you've got throat issues, especially if you have like a sore throat. It's really coating and soothing. But marshmallow actually has a lot of immune boosting properties as well and people aren't always as aware of that, that it has that side too. Also if you've got stomach issues, it can be really soothing and helping to coat that as well. So here I've got yarrow, which again is not blossoming yet. It's going to be really fun when all of these come into bloom. But yarrow is great. It actually I don't find it growing wild on our property or very many places around here. So I purposely planted the yarrow. But yarrow is very well known for being a herb that can help stop bleeding. And so this is great to use in home wound care. Now up next, this one, which is actually you get to see finally one of them in bloom, besides the feverfew. And this is valerian. So valerian is really well known to help aid in sleep and stress, which who of us doesn't have some amount of stress these days. So this can is a really great herb for that. The blossoms smell amazing. One thing to be aware of though is the roots. When they're disturbed or if you have cats that will dig or get in an area, the roots can attract cats and or rodents. The roots are actually pretty stinky and smelly, but the blossoms themselves actually smell really, really great. So just a few things to be aware of if you've got a lot of cats to make sure that you're planting in an area where you're not going to be walking or stepping on the roots and they won't be exposed so they don't emit that odor. Now I've also got here one of my other, this one's such a well-known herb, but it's so fun, and that is chamomile. So I've got that over this whole front row and you can see it's in blossom. I'll start to harvest off of these. These ones I could harvest, but the majority of them are just coming on. And so it's also one of those that's known a lot of people will use it close to bedtime to help relax, but it also can be used to help with fevers. Then up next I've got my lavender. And lavender is just gorgeous. It's one of the most aromatic herbs. It smells so good I can never resist. And it's really well known for relaxation, calming, and it's also really good to use. I infuse this into oils and use this in a lot of my homemade salves and balms. So it's really good to use topically on the skin as well. And then of course no herb garden would be complete without echinacea. So here my echinacea is blooming and one of the great things about echinacea is you can actually use all parts of the plant. So you can use the blossoms and you can use the leaves to infuse and do you know tinctures and teas, but the strongest medicinal part of the plant is going to be the roots. So you can't harvest the roots until the plant is at least two years old because you don't you want to leave some behind right for it to keep growing. And you typically harvest the roots after it's went through a frost and the thought process with that is that all the energy that is in the producing the leaves and the flowers once it goes through that killing frost then all of that energy goes back into the roots. So a lot of times people prefer to harvest the roots in the fall. So now all of these plants are perennials. Well with the exception of chamomile it's not really a perennial here but as long as I let some of those blossoms go to seed it will self-seed itself. The feverfew will as well and so I'll get more plants and I won't have to seed start and start it again next year in that area. It'll come back. But holy basil on the other hand is an annual and I'm loving holy basil this year. I'm actually using it as a culinary basil. I think it has great taste. Now some people think it's a little bit hotter or spicier. I don't really like spicy food and I'm not noticing that it has the heat factor. I feel like it actually has more of the just the basil intense flavor so I'm using it in salads and soups and sauces and all the fun places that you would use basil. But you will harvest the leaves and the blossoms which I'm just getting ready I need to cut this back and dry them and then typically you'll use them in a tea though you can make this into a tincture but holy basil is great for helping with stress. It's also antiviral and it can you have to be careful though if you have blood sugar issues because it can lower blood sugar and so just be aware there if you've got blood sugar issues be aware of using it for that and then it also helps as an aid with blood pressure but again if you're on blood pressure medication those are some things you definitely need to do your research on before using. So up next is hyssop. Now hyssop can be sometimes thought to be invasive so I put that in this large container but hyssop is a really great herb to have on hand especially when dealing with things in your upper respiratory and the respiratory system so definitely during the fall when cold and flu season is at its peak this is a great one to have on hand and it will actually blossom out some really pretty blossoms. We're just a little bit too early in the season for all of those blossoms to be coming on. Now up next you'll notice I just keep adding herbs so I'm having to find different spots to tuck them in everywhere so over here is my wood betany and wood betany is one you may not have heard of as much I don't feel like it's as commonly referenced or grown as it used to be but wood betany is really well known for helping with migraines and headaches but it doesn't like to be grown in direct full sun so I've got it tucked in here where it gets a little bit of shade in the afternoon from this rock and some of these other bigger larger plants so it shades it just a little bit. So here we have sage. Now I have to tell you sage is one of my favorite culinary oh my goodness I love sage but sage is one of the ones that I reach for first whenever I'm dealing with anything where I've got a dry scratchy or sore throat so I make a tea with this sage and it's one of my favorite things that I reach for. It's also good for helping to aid the digestion so that's great and sage actually has quite a few antioxidants in it which is another good thing we want to have when we're not feeling well. And then the other thing that I have in here is a couple different types of mint so I've got a little bit of chocolate mint and then I've got some regular mint here and mint is really good especially during when we're experiencing some of those cold symptoms mint can be helpful to helping aid and deal with headache relief but also mint is one of those powerful aromatics and so you smell it and mint is also really good for helping to clear congestion or helping you deal with congestion so that you can breathe breathe easier help you breathe easier maybe not talk easier in my case but these are two and they also I have them in this large container because these will spread believe it or not when I first planted them in this container they were little itty bitty tiner and tiny and now they're just spread out everywhere so these are ones beware of they can be a little bit invasive if you plant them in a flower bed so I recommend planting these in containers so lemon balm is one of my other top picks and part of that is not just because we happen to share the same name Melissa when you get into the the latin version or scientific name of the plant but lemon balm is great one it smells oh you guys I wish you could smell this it smells so good but lemon balm typically you can do it in a tincture or a tea but it's really good for help with sleep and reducing stress and also for helping to aid for antiviral type properties so lemon balm is really a powerhouse though when you're dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress and sleep type issues and it happens to smell amazing lemon balm can be a little bit invasive so I actually planted it in this area this runs right along our driveway so if it extends too far this way it's just going to get ran over with the lawnmower and if it extends too far that way it's just going to get driven over and so it'll kill it that way as well so kind of helping it contain it in this space but I really don't mind if it just spreads all the way throughout here so just be cognizant when you're planting it I just this these were little tiny plants just just about two months ago and they've already extended quite a bit and filled in this area so pretty soon this whole area will be just lemon balm so this guy is a little bit tiny I've just only had him in for probably about six weeks you can see it's not very big yet but this is whorehound and so whorehound also can spread again you can this is kind of a weedy area that hasn't really been taken very well care of and so I have no problem letting plants that are a little bit more invasive come in here to hopefully choke out the weeds and same scenario goes too far that way lawnmower too far that way it's going to get driven over but whorehound is great and many of you are probably familiar whorehound is something that's been used in cough drops and is really well known to help aid when you have a lot of coughing going on now if you want to know how to make an herbal infused oil you can catch that video and go and learn about that but I know a lot of you want to know how do you take these herbs and actually make them into the different tinctures and the teas and dive a lot deeper on their actual medicinal properties and safeties and contraindications and all of those things that you should be aware of before you ever use any type of herb medicinally so I'm really excited that this fall I'm going to be opening up doing a full herbal course as well as an herbal challenge as part of the pioneering today academy so make sure that you are on my email list and have a lot of cool things coming out regarding that to help you learn how to use and grow your own herbs you're going to want to make sure that you don't miss any of that